


I Can’t Come Back

by debwalsh



Series: Fictober 2019 [4]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Fictober 2019, Love Confessions, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-11
Updated: 2019-11-11
Packaged: 2021-01-27 12:58:10
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,651
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21392554
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/debwalsh/pseuds/debwalsh
Summary: Bucky believes that leaving is the best thing he can do for Steve.Steve doesn’t agree.Another entry for Fictober.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers
Series: Fictober 2019 [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1501577
Comments: 3
Kudos: 89





	I Can’t Come Back

“Steve ... Steve, I can’t come back.”

There was silence on the other end of the line, a burner phone sitting in a pub in the English countryside.A little town, a village really.Ancient and full of history, families stretching back generations, centuries. 

Where Steve sat, waiting for Bucky to explain.

How could he make Steve understand?How could he make Steve accept that he was right?

The silence stretched, and it felt like the silence was ringing along the piano-wire thinness that was the moment, impossibly long.

Finally, “Buck, you can’t mean that.”

“I can’t.”

“You’ve been exonerated.”

“By the court, yeah.But by the people whose loved ones I killed?”

“The Winter Soldier killed.Hydra killed.Bucky Barnes didn’t kill.”

“Bucky Barnes is a killer, Steve.It wasn’t Hydra pulling the trigger when I hugged a tree waiting for the shot.That was all me.”

“That was war.Maybe the last just war.We had a mission.And we accomplished it.”

“Except for where we didn’t.We thought Hydra was gone -“

“It is now.It’s gone.We burned it from the face of the Earth.”

“So sure.What if you’re wrong?”

“Is that why you don’t want to come back?Because Hydra might still pose a threat?”

“Not want.I want to come back.”He didn’t add what his heart was screaming.Come back to you, punk.I want to come back to you.Instead he said, “Can’t.I can’t come back.”

“Help me understand, Buck.”

“I’m damaged goods.Yeah, I’m exonerated in the courts.But ... there’s nothing I can do to atone, Steve.I don’t deserve -“

“To think such thoughts.Buck, how many times do I have to say, does anyone have to say -“

He closed his eyes, letting the diatribe wash over him like balm.Not the first time he’d felt blessed by the righteous fury of Steve Rogers as it flowed over and around him. 

But maybe the last.

Maybe.

Should be.

Definitely.Yeah, it definitely was.

“Buck.Buck, don’t leave me,” the voice was quiet, anguished.“I can’t ... I can’t live in this century without you, pal.If you won’t come back to me, then ...”

“What?” Bucky asked then, his voice a strained and broken whisper.

“Then I’ll come to you.I just wanna go home, Buck.And you, you’re it.You’re home for me.So wherever you’re gonna be ... that’s where I wanna be, too. That’s where I need to be.”

“No.”

“Fuck you.You don’t get to tell me what to do.”

“I’m lookin’ out for you, punk.This isn’t a fight you wanna get your hands dirty on.”

“Being with you’s no fight, Buck.It’s an honor.”

“It’s a shit show.”

“You’re acquitted.You can go anywhere in the world now.The World Court -“

“Yeah, okay. Anywhere in the world.Then what?”

“The Army.They’ve got a big fat check for back pay.”

“So I show up to collect.They put me in the stockade.Or worse.”

“They can’t.You’re a free man.Proven innocent.”

“In court.”

“Courts.Military, civil, world.You are free, Bucky Barnes.”

“I don’t know what that means.”

“It means you can come home.To Brooklyn.Or wherever you want to be.Just ... let me be there with you.”

It was tempting.God, it was tempting.Steve had no idea how Bucky felt about him.How he’d always felt.Yeah, they were closer than brothers, and Bucky loved Steve.Steve knew that.But he didn’t know the many ways in which Bucky loved Steve.Or how Bucky wanted Steve.The urges.The desires.The dreams.

The fantasies.

Steve was above all that. 

Even if he wasn’t, why the fuck would he want Bucky?

He wouldn’t, of course.Steve didn’t look at men that way.Not the way Bucky had always looked at Steve.Little Steve, big Steve, it didn’t matter.They both overflowed with Steveness.It was the Steveness that sucked Bucky in, bound him to Steve.Bound him body, mind, and soul. And heart.

But Bucky loved Steve enough to let him go, let him have a life, a proper life, without the burden of the broken shell of what used to be his best friend.

Steve had grown quiet on the other end.There was a low buzz of activity, scraping sounds like chairs moving on a wooden floor.Voices, unintelligible.A soft and steady sound like breathing.Maybe even Steve’s heart beat, strong and steady now.

He should record the sound while he had the chance.It was like the music of the spheres, the sound of Steve’s heart beating true.

“I’m gonna give the shield to Sam.Step down.I’ve had enough.”

“You can’t do that, Steve.”

“It’s my turn.”

“What?”

“My turn. It’s my turn to come home from war.To rest.It’s my turn.Our turn.”

“Our turn?”

“Yeah.I retire, I walk away.Between my back pay and investments, your back pay, we got enough.”

“Enough?” It was hypnotic, beguiling, to listen to Steve spin a tale.Like when they were kids, filling their empty stomachs with tales of adventure, the places they would go, the people they would see.Dreams and aspirations of poor boys with no future stretching out in front of them.

Oh, if they’d only known.If only they’d known how impossible and extreme their futures would be.

But Steve was still spinning his tale, like the old bards his Ma would talk about, tales told upon the trail to weary travelers, myths and legends handed down generation to generation.Words of power.

“You don’t mean that,” Bucky said softly.

“If you’re not coming back, there’s no reason for me to stay.My place is with you, Buck.We can have whatever future we want.Together.”

“You don’t want what I’m peddling, pal.This isn’t right for you.”

“You’re right for me, Bucky Barnes.You. And only you.”

“‘Til you meet a dame. What’d Carter call it?The right partner.”

“That’s you.It’s always been you. You’ve always been my partner.My right partner.Don’t need anyone else.Just you, Buck.”

“You’ll find someone better.”

“There is no one better.”

Bucky thought he heard the signal waver, shudder, fragment.

A part of him died in that moment, believing that when this call ended, there would never be another.

But the tinny quality of the call wavered, nearly broke, and then came back, stronger than before.

Like a little punk who never learned to stay down when a bully tried to punch his lights out.

The light might dim for a second, and then it roared back to life.

Every time.

He ached with the memory of too many winters filled with worry.Of bloody cloths pressed against a newly re-broken nose.Of soldiers in faceless masks determined to get the better of Erskine’s last experiment.

When he walked away, he wouldn’t be traveling on Steve’s six any longer.It would be someone else’s job to keep him safe.Bucky was leaving so that someone would have a chance to keep him safe.

He’d been moving away from the cafe where he’d been sitting when Steve had initiated the call.Trying to gin up the courage to finally let go, end the call, end the line, let Steve have the life he deserved, without Bucky and Bucky’s damage.

And as he walked briskly up the lane toward the edge of town, he saw it.A golden circle spitting sparks, rotating wildly, hovering in mid-air.

“I’m not a fucking taxi service, Rogers,” he heard a voice say then.Strange.But wait, he was in New York -

And then Steve was stepping through the circle, while Strange stood behind him, holding one hand up while the other sketched the circle in the air.Steve still held the phone up to his ear as he walked out of what looked like New York onto the cobbled street of an ancient town somewhere in Europe.

“Thanks, Doctor,” Steve said softly, and lowered the phone from his face as he stood there in the here and now, looking at Bucky. The sputtering circle faded away, Strange’s voice echoing, “I hope you know what you’re doing, Captain,” as it finally winked out.

“What are you doing?” Bucky asked then, frozen in place, face to face with the man he loved and vowed he would leave.

“Taking what’s mine,” Steve said simply.Then he crushed the phone in his clenched hand, and walked up to Bucky to fist his hands in the lapels of Bucky’s coat, and he pulled him close, so close they were suddenly breathing each other’s air.“You don’t get to leave me behind, jerk.I love you, and we’re gonna grow old together.”

“We might never grow old,” Bucky replied pedantically, wondering at the green flecks swimming in the blue of Steve’s eyes.Looking fondly at the evidence of breaks in that beloved nose.He really did have quite the honker, after all.

“So we don’t grow old.We’ll still do it together.”

“I don’t -“

“I love you, Buck.I’ve always loved you. And I can’t let you go. It’s okay if you don’t want the things I do, I’ll make do.But we’re together, remember? To the end of the line.There’s no end in sight.”

“Love me,” Bucky repeated stupidly, feeling something like hope, something like joy fluttering against the cage of his chest.“Love me?”

And then Steve’s lips were pressed against his, fingers sliding into his hair, the firm reality of him warm and real against every inch of him.

And Bucky kissed back.

“Love you,” he whispered then, and the joy broke free, blessed by the sun shining through the smile that Steve gave him then, warmed by the arms that held him.Then Steve’s hand dropped to lace fingers with Bucky’s, and he tugged him forward.

“Where we going?” Bucky asked then.

“Our future.”

END

**Author's Note:**

> These boys!


End file.
